INTRODUCTION
:: Intro
:: Global Crossroads For A Church Planting Movement

RESOURCES
:: Get the RCPC Church Planter Manual
:: Got Church Planting in You? Find Out!

Grace Church, Hackney in London began worship services on April 18, 2004. Church planter Andrew Jones discusses issues in his newborn congregation at that time.

Scoping Out Hackney
The East End in London, depending on your perspective, is either the wrong side of the tracks or the most vibrant district of London. Historically, the East End has been poor and the first home for many of the waves of immigrants in the city. The Huguenots settled here, Eastern European Jews fleeing the pogroms in the nineteenth century settled here and most recently Bangladeshis, Turks and Africans have come. Alongside these waves of immigrants, a strong, blue-collar Anglo population (and in recent years the middle classes) has begun to move back in.

I was on the pastoral staff at St. Helen's, our Episcopal mother church in the center of London, living in the East End and up for planting a new church in the area. Just over a year ago we began to gather a core group within St. Helen's who were up for it too. They were a wonderfully ragged group of people, many of them involved in the creative arts, and they were already living in the East End or prepared to move in. By the time we launched, we had a core group of around 45 adults and 10 children.

We settled on one borough in the East End called Hackney. Hackney is a borough of about 200,000 people - 50% would claim to be Christian in some sense; 20% claim to have no religion at all and the other 30% identify with various religions. Less than 1% would identify formally with the Church of England (our denomination and the national church). It is usually designated the poorest borough in England and has a reputation for corruption, violence and mismanagement. The British cult author Iain Sinclair who has lived in Hackney since 1967 recently said, "I can't live in Hackney ... Nothing working. Completely shot council, the banality of gradual dysfunction, the sense of the landscape becoming more intimidating."

But, that's only part of the picture. Hackney has various vibrant immigrant communities and has always attracted people with an alternative view on life. In recent years, it's been home for many artists and creatives. The warehouses and lofts colonized by the first-generation of artists in the area have been gentrified, but the southern part of the borough is still a creative centre within London - it's home to many galleries, studios and alternative music and sex clubs. Rich and poor live side by side. After talking to people in the area, we discovered an unreached people group that we might be in a position to reach with the Gospel. They could be described as "socially liberal, politically left wing, culturally sophisticated, interested in spirituality but not in the institutional church as they've experienced it." At this point, our denomination became a factor.

The Gospel in Hackney
We've begun to think through how our services should look to be intelligible to thoughtful nonbelievers within the people group we're trying to reach. It's still a work in progress but this is what it looks like so far.

Community is important for us, so we encourage people to gather 45 minutes before the start of our service. We provide food for the kids and tea/coffee for the adults. We try to have live music while we talk. The time was chosen partly because the facility was available, but also since many of our people are available on a Sunday afternoon. In the morning they are either recovering after a heavy Saturday night or at the many street markets in the area. If they have children, they are shopping or watching the kids do sports. Meeting at 5:45 pm allows people with kids to make it. But it also allows others without kids to go out after the service or just go home for to get ready for work the next day.

The service tends to be more formally liturgical than many evangelical churches in the UK. We have an advantage in being Episcopalians! We decided to go liturgical since the words often have more literary and theological resonance than some of our extemporary efforts. This is important to people for whom words matter. Also, with printed liturgy, there are no shocks in the service - people are not made to feel uncomfortable by things which catch them unawares. However, we do not wear vestments of any kind. It's strictly urban street wear up front. No suits, ties, no neat sweaters! There is a strong element of anti-clericalism in England so we try and get away from the stereotypical image people have of a dog-collared 'vicar'.

We celebrate the Lord's Supper twice a month. We're convinced that God has provided the means in the Word and the Table and the Font for Christians to receive Christ with all their senses. The people we're trying to reach value holistic approaches. Many of them are creatives – so this seems even more of a gift of grace in our context. The Lord's Table is a fairly simple affair – we use one of the Anglican eucharistic prayers and people come up to the table in groups to receive from one cup and one loaf. We encourage people who are not believers to come up too and to be prayed for even though they do not eat and drink. We also share the peace before the Lord's Table but do not exchange the sign of peace – reserved Brits get freaked by someone asking them to make eye or physical contact with another person!

Our aim is to make our music contemporary without choosing between the ancient or modern. Our music director is a classical saxophonist who plays some jazz piano – he works for us two days a week. So we're fairly eclectic in our music, choosing to blend styles. We do ancient hymns, back to Messiaen and Bach, right through recent worship songs.

Our preaching lasts about 25 minutes and remains consecutive exposition. We have not chosen to adopt the Anglican lectionary since it tends to fracture the story rather than making the connections (as well as leaving out the tough parts!). We try to get people to see the sermon as part of a dialogue which continues after the service with 15 minutes of questions and answers. We provide a fez (a wonderful Egyptian hat) at the front of the church into which people can drop written questions, but we also encourage verbal questions and discussion from the floor. After the service ends, we encourage those who can to go out and eat and drink together.

Our leaders work hard to make the worship service comprehensible. We're trying to lead in such a way that the service makes sense to the first-time attendee, but equally fresh for the person there for the thousandth time. We stress our common experience as human beings, Christian or not, as well as our common need for God's grace in Christ.

What a long, strange, grace-full trip it's been. Please pray for Grace Church, Hackney, pray for the borough, and pray for the Church of England.